


Blank Slate

by jinxitor



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Gravity Falls Spoilers, M/M, Post-Gravity Falls, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-07-22 06:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7424575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinxitor/pseuds/jinxitor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every day, Dipper leaves his journal in front of a gnarled statue.<br/>Bill Cipher bridged a gap between worlds, opened a rift in the sky, defied gravity, and nearly killed the people closest to Dipper - but Bill Cipher doesn't remember any of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Journal - No, Not That One, a Different One

“Mr. Pines?” the psychiatrist asked as she peered at him over her clipboard.  Her thick glasses magnified her eyes to twice their real size, which always gave Dipper the impression she was watching him harder than she probably was.

“Huh?  Oh, yeah!  Sorry.  Yes?”

“...It seems you’ve just proved the point I was about to make.  You just drifted off again, yes?”  Without waiting for a reply, she continued, “You have a lot of thoughts, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I...guess I do,” Dipper said.

The psychiatrist nodded knowingly.  “Mmhmm, it’s something I’ve noticed ever since you’ve started seeing me.  You constantly think, and you wish to tell other people your thoughts, but you’re afraid of doing so because you’re uncertain of what their reaction will be.”

Dipper nodded back.  Yep, that was him, alright.  

“And of course it would be unreasonable to expect you to suddenly feel confident enough to talk so much to other people.  Mr. Pines, have you ever thought of keeping a journal?”

A journal.  Dipper’s immediate thoughts traveled to _the_ journals, the ones written by his Grunkle Ford.  Then he remembered a stack of nice, faux leather bound books with empty pages stuffed in the back of the closet of his California home.

Dipper had tried something like half a dozen times to start a journal.  He liked the idea of it, and he liked that he could document everything that happened to him.  However, every single time he tried to start one, and bought a brand new journal from the bookstore, he didn’t know where to start.

Dipper felt an obligation to write down his entire life’s story first, to copy down every event he felt was important enough to impact the person he was today, to create a laundry list of people he knew and things he had done.  And then for three days straight, he would write tirelessly everything he could think of.  Sometimes he would get something out of order and erase several full pages of writing.  After hours upon hours of writing his life’s story and still getting nowhere near the present day to talk about anything currently happening to him, he’d burn out, and the journal would sit there on his desk untouched for several months.  Eventually, he’d always tire of looking at it, and stuffed it in the back of his closet with the rest.  Every single time.

“Mr. Pines?  You’re thinking again.”

“Oh!  Sorry again.  I was thinking about the journals, though.  The thing is, I _have_ tried to write journals.  A bunch of times.  The problem is, I-”

“-You never know where to start?” she interrupts.  “Yes, that’s not an uncommon problem.  Here, I have an idea for you.  Try writing letters to a friend.  But rather than sending letters, write them all inside of a journal.  You don’t need to ever send them, but if you pretend you’re writing to that friend, you have no need for introductions.  They already know who you are, and you can feel free to talk without explaining every little thing.  A journal is different from a book, Mr. Pines; a conversation needs no exposition.”

Dipper was a little irritated by the fact that his psychiatrist, whose job was to listen to him, just cut him off, but he liked that idea.  He liked that idea a lot.  It was such a simple solution to the problem, but he never would have thought of it.  He smiled.

“Thank you.  I think I’ll try that.”

“Good, good.  I think it will be beneficial for you to write down your thoughts.  The more you write them down, the more confidence you will have in them.”

The more he wrote down his thoughts, the more confidence he would have in them.  Dipper left the office beaming and picked up another new journal from the store.  This one would be different, though.  He knew it.

The next morning, Dipper was going with his twin sister Mabel to stay at the Mystery Shack up in Oregon.  It had become a yearly tradition ever since they first went when they were twelve years old, even now that they were nineteen.  Taking the bus was tradition, too, even now that they both could drive.  The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, Dipper supposed.

Dipper reasoned that the first day of their trip to Gravity Falls would be a perfect time to start his journal, so he neatly placed it on top of his clothes and belongings as he packed that evening and zipped up his suitcase.

“What’s that you got there, Dipper?” Mabel asked.  She was leaning into the room in a nearly cartoonish fashion, with her long, thick hair still swinging from the velocity with which she must have slid down the hall.  “New book?  Police records?  Diary?  Or did you forget to put something back at the Gravity Falls library?”

“I’ll have you know I take my summer job at the Gravity Falls library _very_ seriously, and I would never forget to return a book to it.  You aren’t too far off with diary, though.  Psychiatrist said I should try journalling to get more confidence in my thoughts and opinions.”

“Aww, that’s good to hear!”  Mabel flopped down on Dipper’s bed with enough force to make his suitcase leap into the air.  “Haven’t you tried that a bunch of times, though?”

“Yeah, but she told me to pretend I was writing a letter to someone instead of writing a book about myself, so it’ll be easier to find a starting point,” Dipper explained.

“That makes sense.  Good luck with it!  I’ll pester you about it every so often so you won’t forget.”  She playfully punched his arm.

Dipper smiled again.  “Thanks, Mabel.”

“So, who are you pretending to write to?” Mabel inquired with genuine interest.

Dipper paused.  He hadn’t thought about that at all.  That made him feel kind of dumb, because it seems like the next logical step once you’ve decided to write a pretend letter, but apparently it wasn’t to him.  “...I don’t know yet,” he confessed.  “I’ll think about it.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to your thinking - I’ve gotta finish packing, too!”

Mabel skipped out of the room, stopped to shut the door carefully, the way Dipper preferred it, and her lively footsteps went away down the hall.

Who to write to?  Of course Mabel was probably out of the question - she lived with him nearly all the time and he told her most everything anyway.  If he was going to write pretend letters to Mabel, he may as well just talk to Mabel.  No, she was just too safe.  Grunkle Stan and Ford also came to mind, and maybe weren’t quite as immediate in the way that Mabel was, but being family they probably wouldn’t be good practice either.  

It shouldn’t matter who he wrote to, he thought, because they’d never read it, but somehow he already knew it would affect his mindset as he wrote.  Soos, maybe?  Bless his heart, he was such a sweet guy and a great handyman (no matter what anyone might think,) but Dipper simply couldn’t picture himself talking about his really deep ideas with Soos.  

Wendy!  Of course, Wendy!  Dipper loved to talk to her, she was supportive and cool and really just a great friend in general.  He knew she would be interested in the things he talked about, but she was _so_ cool he’d always felt intimidated talking to her, even long after he got over his schoolboy crush on her.  She was the perfect candidate for this, seriously!

But then Dipper considered something - what if Wendy ever found it?  Sure, that was probably unlikely, but as soon as he imagined having to explain a journal full of letters written to her, he nearly felt ill.  Yes, he didn’t like her like that anymore, but given his track record, not to mention how creepy he was in retrospect about his crush on her when he was twelve, that would literally be the worst.

He groaned and flopped backwards on his bed.  Who else even was there?  He really didn’t have all that many close friends, especially ones that weren’t family members, did he?  Who did he know who had the necessary background both of already knowing him _and_ also being able to understand really complicated ideas about his lame interests?

Dipper had an idea.

 

Dear Bill,

Not that you’re particularly dear to me, but I couldn’t think of another heading and the word Bill all by itself there just looked kind of bare to me.  It’s me, Dipper.  Remember that time you nearly killed my family and destroyed the world?  Guess who’s back on the bus to Gravity Falls?  Well, by the time you read this I’ll already be there.  I’m already doing better than I used to with this journalling thing, but I’m probably going to get sidetracked a lot anyway, because that’s how I explain things.

I’m writing to you for a couple reasons.  For one thing, I couldn’t think of anyone else who fit the bill.  (I hope you liked my pun right there.  I vaguely remember you having a thing for puns and also being incredibly narcissistic.)  For another thing, after everything you did, I feel like you kind of owe it to me to read my dumb rambling about my existential angst and my 19-year-old problems.  Lastly, I don’t know.  I’ve always felt just a little bit bad for you being a petrified statue all alone in the middle of the woods, even if you are completely awful.  Maybe reading this will give you something to do.  I’m not sure if you’re actually conscious in there, but it makes me feel better about the whole thing on some level.

I never really got you.  I think that’s what bothered me more than anything else about that entire thing after it was all over.  What were you even trying to do?  A lot of the supernatural things I encountered in Gravity Falls that summer (and ever since - they haven’t disappeared) ended up being things I had to just talk to and understand in order to make them stop causing trouble, but I have no clue what you were thinking.

I guess that wraps up my establishing entry.  There’s my purpose for writing and stuff - I mean, my purpose other than “because my therapist told me to.”  I’ll be back every day to write a new one, so I’ll see you later.

-Dipper

 

Dipper, a little worn out from the trip through the woods, took the little plastic storage bin out from under his arm and set it on the ground.  He put the journal inside, along with a few pens, and shut the lid tight so it would be safe by the elements.  He set the plastic bin down just in front of the mossy stone statue, still offering its hand after all these years, and stood there for a moment taking in the strangeness of the image.  Then he turned and walked away.


	2. I'm Old. And Traumatized

Dear Bill,

I finished unpacking today.  Even though it’s been so long, Grunkle Stan still seems like he doesn’t believe Ford is back.  When Ford offered me that apprenticeship with him back when I was twelve, it sounded like a great opportunity, but I’m really glad I didn’t take it.  I think if I forcefully took myself away from Mabel for my own self-interest, our relationship might have ended up like theirs did.  I probably wouldn’t have ended up trapped in another dimension for thirty years, but I don’t think Mabel and me would be still as close as ever, and I definitely don’t think I’d be as happy in my life as I am right now.

Okay, that probably seems like a really contradictory statement to make, given that I’m clinically depressed, but that’s different.  I _am_ happy with where I am right now, and I’m not too pessimistic about my future, but I just feel really unmotivated and empty a lot of the time.  Which really sucks, because I know I don’t have anything to be upset about.  Why is it that people in way worse places than me can keep on going just fine but I have trouble getting out of bed half of the time?  And the fact that I have nothing to be upset about makes me feel even worse, even though Mabel keeps telling me that just because other people have it worse doesn’t mean I should measure myself against them, and it also doesn’t mean my problems are “invalid,” but I can’t help but feel that way about them.

That’s the thing - she almost always knows what to say, even if it doesn’t make my problem go away.  I think that going back home with Mabel was the absolute most important decision I’ve ever made.  Maybe Mabel isn’t as “intelligent” as I am, at least not in the way Ford was looking for, but I don’t think I could really do much without her.  She gives better advice than you’d think - if you ask her about a problem you’ve been struggling with forever, she’ll might have an answer for you right away, like it took no effort on her part, but you never would have thought of it yourself.  That’s not to say you shouldn’t do anything for yourself independent of your family, but Mabel is someone I rely on, and I can trust that she’s worth relying on.  I wouldn’t want to throw that away.  Maybe you can’t really understand something like that, because I get the sense you’ve never relied on anyone before, and you definitely haven’t had a mutually trusting relationship.  Then again, it’s probably not fair for me to drag you when you’ve been a statue for seven years.

-Dipper

 

Dear Bill,

Grunkle Stan’s been telling the same joke when we go out in the canoe ever since we met him.  I think his ex’s aim has been getting better for a long enough time to not miss him anymore.

-Dipper

 

Dear Bill,

Only a week or so until I go back to work at the library, and it’s taking all my self-control to stay away.  I don’t like to go in before the day I start work because it feels less official that way.  No one else really gets my thing with the library, not even Ford, which you wouldn’t expect because of how bookish he is.  He seems to think he’s already got every book he’d ever need in the shack, which might be true for him, but it’s not for me.  I’ve always loved libraries.  Not just because I happen to like books, but I also like it for the atmosphere.  It’s a place where people go for information, so when someone asks you a question, they don’t get upset when you talk too much.  Unless you’re being too loud, but I’ve gotten a lot better at keeping my voice low.

I’m the youngest person who works there right now, so people tend to go to me the most because I’m not intimidating like the old ladies who shush people a lot.  Kids really like me, too.  I never feel pressured when people ask me questions or come to me for help, because I know the library.  There’s a system and a catalogue of books and everything, so no one ever asks me a question I can’t answer.  It’s the best job I’ve ever had since it’s not stressful to me at all, which is why I’m happy to go back every year.  I actually considered majoring in library science in college, but I’d still really like to go for TV production.  It’s funny how what I want to make things that’ll be broadcast for hundreds of thousands of people, but I have a hard time talking to them, huh?  That’s part of why it’s so important to me that I get over this.

-Dipper

 

Dear Bill,

This writing thing is weird.  You haven’t said anything to me because you’re a statue and probably also dead, but writing these letters I somehow feel like I know you better.  Maybe I just appreciate that you’re some kind of weird vessel through which I’m improving my ability to talk to other people.  Actually, I would probably be legitimately terrified if something crazy happened, like I started getting replies in this journal from you like with Tom Riddle’s diary in the second Harry Potter book.

Today I found out Wendy’s been with her current boyfriend for three years now, and according to Mabel, they’re considering getting engaged within the next few years.  I really am over her, and I have been for awhile, but something about that just feels a little bit upsetting.  I think part of it isn’t even that I’m jealous or anything, but that we’re really all finally growing up.  I know Mabel had this existential crisis already, and I never really had to go through it, but there is something kind of scary about the fact that we’re adults now.  I still don’t know how to do taxes.

-Dipper

 

Dipper looked over his entries from the past handful of days and felt a surge of warm, fuzzy pride in himself.  He had really owned up to his commitment this time.  At this point, he really _was_ enjoying writing - though he hoped he hadn’t jinxed himself with the bit about the possibility of supernatural things happening.  

A buzz came from Dipper’s back pocket.

_dipper, youd better come home unless u wanna miss spook escapades!!!  its that special about the haunted tractor supply store!!!  *~{Mabel Sugarplum Qween}~*_

Dipper briefly wondered, as he always did, where on earth Mabel found the option for a text message signature in a current-gen smartphone, but got up from where he was sitting anyway.  There were adult men with overpriced equipment to watch harass the dead in haunted tractor supply stores on cable television.  (Dipper wasn’t sure if the rumor about how _grandparents_ always have really good cable were true, but his great uncles certainly did.  He once witnessed Stan yell over the phone at the cable company because they failed to give him one of the movie channels he was paying for.  He remembered that, and noted that it might be possible material for a future journal entry.)  Carefully, Dipper put his journal away at the base of the statue of Bill Cipher.  

The more times he placed it there, the less strange it seemed to be when he looked at it, but today, he felt a certain unease that wasn’t even present the very first time he left his journal here.  Dipper felt a sort of magnetic pull from it, and for a few moments couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“...I’ll be back, jeez!”  He turned before he could get stuck looking at it any longer and raced off to the shack.  As superstitious as Dipper was, surely he was imagining _that_ , he reasoned.

Dipper slammed open the creaky front door, startling Grunkle Ford.

“Oh!  It’s.  Just you, Dipper,” Ford sighed.

“Yeah, just me,” Dipper said, smiling sheepishly.  He forgot about Ford and sudden sounds.

Ford nodded.  “Just remember to be careful with loud noises, alright?  I’m old.  And traumatized.”

“Yeah, I remember.  Sorry, I’ll be more careful.”  Dipper bounced in place.  He genuinely was sorry, but he also was in grave danger of missing the beginning of Spook Escapades.

Ford winked.  “Don’t worry, Mabel’s got it paused for you.  We have a DVR, remember?”

“Thanks, Grunkle Ford!”

Dipper skidded into the living room, practically feeling the static electricity build from the friction of his socks hitting the carpet at sixty miles per hour, and was met with Mabel’s grinning face.  As promised, Spook Escapades was indeed paused.

“I maaaybe fibbed a little when I said you might miss it, but you know waiting isn’t my favorite thing to do,” Mabel said, kicking her feet impatiently.

The intro rolled, and Dipper remembered when they would always bicker over what to watch.  After 19 years of living together, the twins eventually figured out a compromise, where Mabel learned to love Dipper’s ghost and cryptid hunting marathons and Dipper also learned to love Mabel’s countless campy high school romance movies.  Once you admitted to yourself the boys actually were cute, it became a lot easier to like them.

“-And Billy,” the Spook Escapades host directed, “You go down and film us the death tunnel.”

“Man, why do they always have _one_ guy going down into the worst place?” Mabel asked.

“That’s what _I’ve_ been saying!  I think our opinions are pretty accredited on the matter of how you’re supposed to go adventuring into scary places with other people accompanying you, not alone.”

Stan peered in through the doorway.  “Jeez, I’m out for five minutes and you kids take over the whole living room?  What’s with you and these ghost-hunting shows, anyway?  Haven’t you hunted enough ghosts in real life?”

“Grunkle Staaan, the screaming is only funny if it isn’t ours,” Mabel explained.  “Right, Dipper?  ...Dipper?”

“Mabel, hold on, let me rewind this a sec, are you hearing what they’re hearing in this audio recording?  They’re telling me the ghosts are reciting the lyrics of the first verse of Stairway to Heaven backwards in the EVP but all I hear is static.”

Stan waved his hand dismissively and walked away, but he was smiling.  


	3. Here

There was something different about the afternoon.  Dipper Pines hiked out to the statue in the woods a little bit later in the day than usual after a late night marathoning Spook Escapades with Mabel.  Even though he’d had a late night, he felt so...light.  Counting the entry he would write today, that would make thirteen entries in total.  He _had_ ended up telling half of his life’s story.  His seventh entry was over fifteen pages long.  He wrote bad memories of being bullied in elementary school; he wrote about overplayed pop songs that made him smile; he wrote about his top ten favorite Mabel Movies™, all these things and many more, whatever he thought of while he was writing, he’d go ahead and write.  

To Dipper, writing truly was therapeutic, and he was so, so _happy_ he had finally gotten into a habit of it.  A journal couldn’t reject any topic he thought of, so all these random thoughts, bits and bobs and lists of inconsequential favorites were accepted by it just as willingly as his more intelligible and introspective writing.  At this point, he wondered if he still needed to talk to a psychiatrist.  He quickly thought better of that; however, given that a journal could not give reliable medical advice to him.

Dipper saw the familiar clearing and bounded the last few strides towards the mossy statue.  He couldn’t help but laugh at himself for getting so excited about writing.  Was this bubbly, giggly feeling how Mabel felt all the time?  He bent over and shook hands with the statue.

“How do you do, Cipher?  I would say that today’s abso _lute_ ly lovely - cold for the summer, though, but that’s okay.  Cloudy and mysterious seems like your aesthetic, and it’s probably towards the top of my list of preferred weather conditions, too.  Guess what time it is?  It’s time for you to read more about my problems and/or favorite remixes of Straight Blanchin!  What’s the matter?  Your expression looks a little - _stony._ ”

Dipper burst out laughing at his own lame joke and let himself fall back on the cushion of soft grass.  He stretched his arm out - juuuust a little further, come on - and pulled over his journal and pen, then rolled over onto his stomach and cracked open the book.  

 

Dear Bill,

The Straight Blanchin remixes thing was a joke; I don’t actually like that song all that much.  And I actually don’t have any problems to talk about today either because I’m excited!  Tomorrow I finally get to go back to work at the library!  In case you haven’t noticed, I like books.  And don’t worry, I’ll be able to journal still.  I already told you all about the library and why I love it, so I’m not gonna write that all over again, but I thought it was worth mentioning that tomorrow was the day.

Last night I stayed up until 2 AM watching Spook Escapades with Mabel.  I used to pull all-nighters a LOT reading a “different” journal (wink wink nudge nudge,) but I’m an ~adult~ now and I finally have the sleep schedule of a functional human being.  For the most part, anyway.  I still have occasional episodes of insomnia.  

Why has it never occurred to me to contact the Spook Escapades team and tell them to come to Gravity Falls?  Then again, I don’t want this place getting _too_ much publicity.  

Okay, honestly, I’ve been sitting here for five minutes but I can’t think of anything to write about.  Sorry!  I’ll have something for you tomorrow after I start work!  

 

The first thing he felt was the cool breeze on his face.  It came in and then ebbed away, and he’d feel the locks of his hair fall down over his cheeks again, and then another gust would come.  He remembered two things - that his name was Bill Cipher - and Dipper Pines' journal.

He opened his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's here.


End file.
